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Matthew Green: Does the Minister share my bafflement that the Conservatives appear to want to allow councils to enable virtually anyone but a council employee to issue fixed-penalty notices? Paragraphs (b) and (c) would enable the council to authorise somebody other than its employees to do so, but paragraph (a), which the Conservatives would delete, is about council employees. I am somewhat baffled, and I am sure that the Minister shares my bafflement.
Alun Michael: The hon. Gentleman makes robustly the point that I made more gently to the hon. Member for Vale of York in an intervention. He is right, and I hope that she will withdraw the amendment.
Miss McIntosh: I explained myself at some length. I take it that Environment Agency officers continue to be authorised to remove fly-posting because the Minister did not deny that, although he was not terribly clear. My amendment was, to all intents and purposes, a probing amendment.
Alun Michael: The hon. Lady should note that that is permitted.
Miss McIntosh: I presume that the Minister means that the status quo will pertain. With that affirmation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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Clause 23
Controls on free distribution of printed matter
Sue Doughty: I beg to move amendment No. 74, in page 20, leave out lines 25 and 26.
A situation that we have had in Guildford illustrates the points on which we seek clarity. This is a probing amendment that is, on the face of it, simple and straightforward, although in practice there might be further complications. In the local government elections of the year before last, a local business man created his own political party. It was generally felt locally, and it was entrenched in his manifesto, that he thought that the Conservatives would give him a better planning deal than the Liberal Democrats. He had aspirations to build a large casino and various other things.
In fairness to the Conservatives, I should say that there is no indication that they had ever said that they would give him a better answer on planning than the Liberal Democrats had. However, the business man formed a political party—Trinity—that campaigned in marginal wards to try to drive in a wedge, so that Liberal Democrat seats would be lost. I bring the matter up because that individual regularly takes the council to court for everything possible. That is why I seek clarity.
That person runs a political party—from time to time, as the need occurs—and is a local business man, pursuing business interests. He may also be running a campaign to open a football stadium, which may be connected with his desire to set up a casino. We could have only a very blurred idea of what would go on his leaflets. In other words, he might have one piece of paper, but be caught by others when he is issuing leaflets for his very large nightclub in the middle of Guildford—another thing that he gets up to.
Mr. Evans: I seek further clarity on this as well. I know that a number of people put out what could be termed political leaflets outside election times. They contain advertisements for all sorts of things, which I assume are to the benefit of those parties. They would fall foul of this proposal would they not?
Sue Doughty: That is a very helpful intervention. I believe that the answer is yes. If the Trinity party were to put out printed matter containing a slogan, such as ''The best thing for town planning'', ''Free drinks at The Drink on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays'' or whatever it might be, that would precisely illustrate the problem.
3.45 pm
Mr. Evans: I am not talking about people who invent political parties, but about traditional political parties that utilise advertisements from local business men. Without the funding such parties perhaps would not be able to distribute their political literature in the first place. I am thinking about the Liberal Democrats as much as any other party.
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Sue Doughty: I quite accept that point. I have seen such things on literature from the three political parties that I regularly come across in addition to Trinity, which appears and disappears on a regular basis. We tabled a probing amendment and recommended a deletion because the position is untenable. We look forward to the Minister telling us how we could get round the problem.
Alun Michael: I am sorry to break it to the hon. Lady, but it is not always possible to solve every problem in legislation. Legitimate political activity almost invariably has a fringe. There is a great danger of trying to cut the fringes off and damaging the mainstream of political activity.
I can understand the hon. Lady wanting to raise her local issues and doing so with a probing amendment. If it were a serious amendment, I would quite robustly say that it would be unthinkable to accept it. The purpose of the exception is to ensure that the human rights of individuals and their legitimate political and democratic activities are not affected by the provisions.
When we started talking about the provision and learning from the experience in London of trying to avoid excessive free literature, I was worried that it might be difficult to phrase the clause in a way that would protect rights. I believe that we have achieved that protection. Consultation raised the same concern that immediately came to my mind, which was that the control of free literature distribution could impinge on the freedom of speech and both religious and political canvassing.
By allowing the exemptions, we protect the rights of freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience and religion. They are enshrined under the European convention on human rights and, now, in our law under the Human Rights Act 1998. Even if they were not enshrined there, most of us would say immediately that we do not want to see a restriction on political and religious debate. That would be implied by the proposed deletion from the Bill. We must put up with some things in order to maintain the integrity of our political structures.
I understand what the hon. Lady means about campaign advertisements. Somebody stood in one general election under the title of New Labour before we wisely took control of Government and inserted clauses to stop that sort of thing happening. As she might imagine, I was in support of that measure when we started to draft it at the Home Office.
We cannot solve all problems and we must be careful that we do not go too far. I have sympathy with the hon. Lady. Everybody involved in legitimate political activity must do all they can to make it clear where the boundaries are. They should not seek individual, personal or party advantage through these types of intervention. This matter is down to the way we conduct ourselves. It would be extremely dangerous to remove the exemption from the Bill.
Sue Doughty: I have every sympathy with what the Minister is saying. If it were a case of just trying to get some clarity between the one and the other, I would
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fully accept what he is saying. The reality is that the clause is meant to deal with people who, for example, hand out literature outside a nightclub every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The stuff gets thrown on the ground. We are trying to work out the exceptions. Given that the main line of business of the individual in question is nightclubs and bars and the promotion of them, and that he is one of those whom the clause will affect directly, his instant get out is to say, ''Trinity party''.
Alun Michael: Perhaps I can assist the hon. Lady. If someone purported to put out religious information or political material but was not really doing so—in other words, if they were promoting a business—it would be for the court to decide, as it often is, on the boundaries. The fact that the Bill does not deal with the question explicitly does not mean that someone can get away with claiming to represent a political party.
Sue Doughty: I take that point, but I am pressing for clarity from the Minister—because our debate will go down on the record—in identifying what the court would do in such a case. The person in question might say in his defence, ''Oh, no, it is Trinity party; it is just that there is an advert for the nightclub.'' Those issues come to court eventually, and I predict such a court case.
Alun Michael: I offer a final thought; if an individual claimed in defence that he was putting out political material, it would be for the prosecution to show that that was not true, and for the court to make a judgment. Often when such issues are discussed in theoretical terms it sounds as if it might be easy for someone to get away with breaking the law, but when the evidence is looked at objectively by a court it becomes clear whether something is on the wrong side of the line. We cannot solve the individual case that the hon. Lady has raised this morning unless we table an amendment to insert the formula ''political parties, except for'' the one that she has a problem with. That would be making the Bill a little too specific.
Sue Doughty: I thank the Minister for that clarification. I should not want to take exception to the activities of one party more than another; the case was a specific one. The Minister's comments about how the court might deal with the matter are helpful. If he can provide any further clarification on Report we should welcome that. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sue Doughty: I beg to move amendment No. 75, in page 21, line 10, leave out 'and'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 76, in page 21, line 11, at end insert
(c) post a notice on its proposal on the internet.'.
No. 79, in page 21, line 27, leave out 'and'.
No. 80, in page 21, line 28, after 'land', insert '; and
(c) post a notice of its decision on the internet for the duration of the order.'
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No. 81, in page 21, line 40, leave out 'and'.
No. 82, in page 21, line 41, after 'land', insert '; and
(c) post a notice of any revocation on the internet.'.
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